Rennibister Souterrain View all content for Rennibister

RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 3 at HY39731260. This site came to light on a Friday afternoon when a steam threshing mill broke through the surface and became stuck. John Mooney and WilliamTraill came the same day for a look over and on the next Traill and Dr.Marwick gave "a more thorough examination". Its walls are a mix of large ?natural boulders and small quarried stones. The corbelled roof sits on four stones a yard apart, slightly over a foot from the walls and and roughly foursquare [that they are unequal in height suggests to me a possible origin as standing stones]. This oval gallery chamber is 15'3" NW/SE by 8'6", with a 27"x30" passage running approximately 10' from the NW end that is lintelled by oversized untooled slabs. In the walls there are several rectangular niches [including a slot near the floor on the RH side] all of which were empty except for a skull in that opposite the entrance [I assume the one behind the ladder]. More skulls were found about the inner side of the "south pillar". A mass of other bones were also found. At the outer end of the passage was shell midden material [ritual sealing ?]. All of this from report in "The Orkney Herald" of November 17th 1926. Viewed from the new entrance running clockwise the stones are southerly [LH near], westerly [LH far], northerly [RH far], easterly [RH near].

Posted by wideford 14th July 2010ce

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